Household or building energy usage (in terms of kWh etc.) is metered primarily for billing purposes by the power producers, distributors, marketers and brokers. Present technology power grid control and data acquisition systems have made it possible to offer consumers applications to monitor their realized past energy consumption or near real time present energy consumption levels. Energy consumption of individual electric appliances can be monitored individually by dedicated metering devices but the household energy consumption applications are not able to divide the metered consumption to appliances level resolution.
The growing awareness among consumers about environmental issues, energy prices and their own energy consumption may steer the consumer behavior, the consumer striving to save energy resources, save energy cost, make choices between different sources of electricity or a combination thereof.
To meet a desired effect in a chosen energy scheme, the consumers often are limited to the choices of actively monitoring and changing their using habits involving the use of electricity, using more energy-efficient appliances, if available, and monitoring and selecting most cost effective combinations of energy providers. Environmental decision between different sources of electrical energy usually leads to personal cost savings only if the consumption habits can be effectively adapted accordingly.
Energy and cost saving together with environmental aspects, poses thus presently a fragmented information problem, where the different levels of awareness and activity among the consumers greatly affect the total outcome and success of such goals.